J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [208]
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Salinger continued to write with unbroken devotion, even as his appetite for publication withered. Truman Capote would assert that after “Hapworth,” Salinger tried to publish another story in The New Yorker, telling John Updike that he had overheard William Shawn on the telephone with Salinger, rejecting the submission. Shawn, Capote claimed, had been in tears while explaining to Salinger that the magazine had now abandoned him. Updike refused to believe Capote’s story and cautioned him, in no uncertain terms, that he was not a reliable source. Not until 1972 did it become absolutely clear that Salinger had decided to extinguish the ambition of ever publishing again. That year, he repaid Little, Brown and Company—with 5 percent interest—the $75,000 advance toward his next book, freeing himself of his contract in the process.5 At the same time he grew even more fixated on protecting his privacy, refusing numerous requests for anthologies of his work while maintaining complete control over those he had allowed. These had been long-standing tendencies, but a number of events would soon solidify them into obsessions.
Toward the end of 1967, none other than Whit Burnett contacted Salinger and his agent. The editor was in the process of putting together a new book, a personal anthology titled This Is My Best. As he had many times before, Burnett wondered if Salinger would be willing to contribute a story. That Burnett would embarrass himself with such a request, especially after having turned down Salinger’s introduction to his previous anthology, is remarkable. By then Salinger had understandably lost his patience with Burnett and his persistent appeals for stories. In January 1968, he refused Burnett in no uncertain terms. “I do not have any fiction,” Salinger scolded, “either published or unpublished, that I want to include in an anthology.” He then went on to rebuke Burnett for his obstinacy. “We have been through this in the past many times before,” he said with a scowl.6 Whit Burnett was not alone. Salinger was receiving countless requests to republish stories, grant interviews, and release his work onto film and stage. It was usually left to Dorothy Olding to refuse such requests on Salinger’s behalf, and she did so with increasing firmness. “There is no way we can authorize anthology use of Salinger’s work,” she warned Hughes Massie in 1972. “I’m sorry, but that’s that.”7
More distressing was an event that occurred in 1968. The chancellor of the University of Texas, Harry Ransom, had dedicated himself to elevating the school’s library by acquiring enough rare books and manuscripts to rival the great collections of Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. In securing these treasures, some of Ransom’s methods were controversial. Competing with richer Ivy League universities, whose collections were far older and better established, Ransom was not above obtaining the documents of living authors without their permission. He employed a New York agent in “the rare books and manuscripts trade” named Lew David Feldman to haunt auction houses and estate sales, and otherwise sniff out anything that could add to Ransom’s trove. Feldman had reportedly been a salesman from Brooklyn who had suddenly converted to high culture and opened an office on Madison Avenue with the exotic but meaningless name House of El Dieff. In 1967, Feldman managed to obtain a sizable stash of Salinger manuscripts that included more than forty personal letters written by the author to Elizabeth Murray. He sold the collection to Ransom, and on January 6, 1968, the manuscripts and letters became part of the library of the University of Texas. Appalled, Salinger quickly moved to restrict public access to Ransom’s holdings, especially his personal letters to Murray.